Plant RNA viruses have effective strategies to infect host plants through either direct or indirect interactions with various host
proteins, thus suppressing the host immune system. When
plant RNA viruses enter host cells exposed RNAs of viruses are recognized by the host immune system through processes such as
siRNA-dependent silencing. Interestingly, some host
RNA binding proteins have been involved in the inhibition of RNA virus replication, movement, and translation through
RNA-specific binding. Host plants intensively use
RNA binding proteins for defense against
viral infections in nature. In this mini review, we will summarize the function of some host
RNA binding proteins which act in a sequence-specific binding manner to the infecting virus RNA. It is important to understand how plants effectively suppress
RNA virus infections via
RNA binding proteins, and this defense system can be potentially developed as a synthetic virus defense strategy for use in crop engineering.